Monday, August 23, 2010

Mark Souder resigned as an Indiana congressman after confessing an affair with a staffer. WORLD magazine reported some of his comments as he reflected on his moral failure. He shared how difficult it is to keep people in power in check, "Politicians and many top professionals are skilled manipulators and smooth with words. Holding us accountable is hard.""My sin," he wrote, "while forgiven, is greater in that God put me in a position of public trust, so I deserve whatever criticism I receive." He talked about his life while in the middle of this affair, "I prayed multiple times a day, sang hymns with emotions and tears, felt each time it would not happen again, read the Bible every morning . . . So, how in the world did I have a torrid - which is an accurate word - many-year affair? How could I compartmentalize it so much?" He then said, "Bottom line, however, is that the problem is sin . . . the problem is getting the will subordinate to the Holy Spirit early enough that the Spirit is not quenched."

Comedian, Fred Allen, said,"Most of us spend the first six days a week sowing wild oats, then we go to church on Sunday morning and pray for a crop failure."

It really doesn't work like that with God. Grace is not permission to sin. Grace, when understood and received frees us from the power of sin and motivates us to hate our sin by loving the One who died for our sin.

"What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?" ~ Romans 6:1-2